The Alameda Post’s very own Karin K. Jensen and Julia Park Tracey authored books that are now on the Top 100 Indie Books of 2024 list published by Kirkus Reviews. Former Alameda Post board member Tracey is the author of Silence, a novel about a Puritan woman named Silence Marsh who dares to question God aloud in church. Jensen, a Post reporter best known for her precise City Council coverage, is the author of The Strength of Water, which she describes as her “mother’s memoir, as told to me.” As pointed out by Jensen, both she and Tracey’s books are inspired by female ancestors and proudly allow readers to peek back in time from a woman’s perspective.
Silence by Julia Park Tracey
This is Tracey’s second time on Kirkus Reviews’ yearly Top 100 list. Her book The Bereaved, another historical fiction work, made the 2023 list. She told the Post receiving the honor two years in a row is “very gratifying!”
Silence tells the story of Puritan woman Silence Marsh as she deals with the consequences of questioning God in church.
“She is silenced for a year by the powers that be,” reads the book’s blurb. “Broken in heart and spirit, Silence learns to mime and sign, but it isn’t until a new Boston doctor, the dashing Daniel Greenleaf, comes to her backward Cape Cod village that she begins to hope again. Rather than treating Silence with bleeding or leeches, Dr. Greenleaf prescribes fresh air, St. John’s Wort, long walks—and reading.
“Silence has half a hope of getting through her year of punishment when the cry of witchcraft poisons the village. Colonial Massachusetts is still reeling from the Salem Witch Trials just 20 years before. Now, after demanding her silence, she is called to witness at a witchcraft trial—or be accused herself.”
The book is based on the author’s own ancestor, her seventh great-grandmother.
Kirkus Reviews calls Silence “a historically astute and compelling must-read.” Alameda Post reviewer Gene Kahane had this to say about the novel: “Ultimately, this book does what Julia’s last book, The Bereaved, did for me. By telling a story set long ago, she has made me see and feel more clearly how the women of those times connect to the women of our times, with challenges, obstacles, and sufferings overcome through integrity, grit, and a strength that, forgive the possible hyperbole, is the engine for life on Earth.”
Tracey is thrilled to have Silence named among the top 100 indie books by Kirkus Review again this year.
“It’s always exciting to be recognized for your hard work, and landing a coveted spot on the top 100 in Kirkus Reviews is such an honor,” she said. “I am gratified and pleased to have made the list.”
The Strength of Water by Karin K. Jensen
Jensen’s The Strength of Water begins in 1920s Detroit.
“King Ying lives in a small apartment behind her parents’ laundry business, where she stands on a box to iron clothes, endures taunts of Ching-Ching Chinaman on the playground, and tries to reconcile what passes for normal in jazz-age America with her father’s vastly different cultural values,” reads the book’s blurb. “She dreams of a real home, the elegance of her Jane Arden paper dolls, and winning her stern father’s affection. But when Ba, as she calls him, incurs steep debts during the Great Depression, he sends her far from hope to live in his ancestral village.
“In remote Tai Ting Pong in the Guangdong province of China, she feels as foreign in the land of her heritage as in the country of her birth. She must survive hunger, superstition as a dangerous substitute for health care, and Japanese invasion as the Sino-Japanese War begins. When she finally returns to the U.S. with the help of guardian angels, it’s a chance to seize her American dream…if she can overcome mid-20th century racism, those who prey on the poor, and toxic cultural expectations about marriage.”
Kirkus Reviews calls the book “inspiring and heartfelt” as well as “a classic, vividly written immigrant saga.” Alameda Post reviewer Lee Hsu Callaham says “The Strength of Water is full of surprising and fascinating information folded into a memorable story of a woman who discovers that after surviving a lifetime of emotional and financial hardships, ‘I have value and am deserving.’”
Jensen says she took in her mother’s stories all throughout her childhood with a wide-eyed fascination.
“There were stories of gamblers, a big American dream, dashed hopes, dangerous superstitions, war-time privation, and more,” she told the Post. “But there were also stories of the kindness of strangers, the strength of family, and the integrity of fighting for one’s little slice of happiness in this world. These stories felt like a mythology, so far removed from my experience growing up in the Bay Area, and representing a way of life and a history that deserved to be remembered and recorded. When I decided to set them down, I could hear my mother’s voice so clearly that I wrote in the first person.”
In the 2000s, Jensen interviewed her mother, aunts, uncle, sister, and father to begin gathering information. But it wasn’t until the COVID-19 pandemic that the project truly came into focus. “I felt I could not die without getting this story into the world,” she said.
Jensen feels “deeply grateful” to have made it onto the Kirkus Top 100 list.
“When I was interviewing my Mom for the story, I remember her saying something like, ‘I’m glad you’re writing this down for us, because who else would be interested?’ And I tried to tell her that I thought her stories were completely fascinating and an important piece of history to preserve,” said Jensen. “I only wish she were still here to understand what an impact she had in her way.”
Kelsey Goeres is the Managing Editor of the Alameda Post. Contact her via [email protected]. Her writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Kelsey-Goeres.
